The present invention relates generally to a software-implemented diagnostic tool for assessing performance of storage area networks and, more particularly, to a method for lossily compressing time series data collected from storage area networks.
Software-implemented diagnostic tools are currently being developed to assess the performance of storage area networks and other network topologies. Many factors can affect network performance. Some of these factors include hardware parameters, such the amount of cache and the number of control processors; connectivity issues; software issue; and a multitude of network configuration settings, including RAID levels, LUN layout, LUN size, and LUN contention. Since network performance may be affected by one or more of these factors at the same time, diagnostic tools must assess each of the factors that may possibly affect performance.
To perform such an assessment, diagnostic tools collect and analyze large amounts of performance measurement data indicative of these different factors. In many instances, the performance measurement data is in the form of time series data that needs to be compressed into more manageable amounts of data.
Although techniques for lossily compressing time series data are generally known, it is desirable to provide an improved method for lossily compressing time series data that is collected from a storage area network.
In accordance with the present invention, a method is provided for lossily compressing time series data that is collected from a storage area network. The method includes: determining the resolution of an output device that may be used to output a representation of the time series data; determining a sampling block size that is in part based on the resolution of the output device; partitioning the plurality of data points into a plurality of data blocks in accordance with the sampling block size; and applying retention criteria to each of the plurality of data blocks, thereby compressing the time series data to be output by the output device.